


At the end of the line.

by noelia_g



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-06
Updated: 2010-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-05 21:20:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noelia_g/pseuds/noelia_g





	At the end of the line.

No one bats an eye when Gordon turns the camera off, no one runs to knock on the doors, no one calls foul play or volunteers the spiel on the detainee's rights. It's just slightly depressing, and greatly more convenient, seven detectives in the adjoining room and no one does anything.

All that work towards a clean, honest police force, and they all give him a free reign, and Gordon knows that anything he could do would be explained somehow, by seven solid witnesses who would swear in the court that Batman was trying to escape, trying to kill someone, had a weapon, anything and everything. It's quite depressing, if you ask him.

Three hours ago, the SWAT team had achieved its greatest success to date, arresting the city's most wanted criminal; a vigilante, murderer, and the man who took the commissioner's family hostage. There was not a cop in town that would blame Gordon for an accidental weapon discharge, and probably wouldn't even make anyone in the IA interested.

What would cause a commotion, however, would be Gordon freeing the prisoner. Absolutely not going to happen, no matter how much he wished he had the chance. And he actually was pretty damn close to doing just that, moments after the arrest, but one warning look from the Bat stopped him in his tracks. Not now. It was as good as said aloud, he had learned to read Batman at least a little by now, and that one was loud and clear.

Which was roughly how they got here, the interrogation room not unlike the one where months ago they've been holding the Joker, back when they still could work together semi-openly. And as much as he loathed to admit that, Jim missed those days in a way.

He doesn't even know where to start. There's a thousand things or more that he might want to ask the Bat, but none of them relevant, none of them he might want to hear the answer to, and definitely not a single one that he would want all the people on the other side of the security camera to hear.

"What is it, Commissioner?" Batman asks, leaning back in the uncomfortable chair, looking all too at ease for someone handcuffed with two pairs of cuffs. "I thought you would have questions," his voice drops lower, the rasp turning into a threat. It doesn't carry through his gaze, and Gordon is pretty sure it's an act, but not completely sure, and it sends an unpleasant shiver down his spine.

He straightens and shifts in his own chair, hands resting folded on the table, eyes fixed on the Bat, They didn't remove the mask, on Jim's insistence. He said that he'd rather not have anyone electrocuted or worse, they better find him someone who could work out all the security measures in the suit. It was stalling for time, and a pathetic attempt at that, but it had been a long day and it was getting worse.

"Let's start with the big one, shall we?" he suggest, trying to keep his voice steady as his mind races to work the situation out, find something, anything. "Who are you?" It's foolish, but it's safe, a starting point.

"You can do better than that, Jim." It's mocking and amused now, a taunt, low and nasty. The gaze is different, but says pretty much the same. You can do better than that. This is a game, and a show, and he's failing, big time, but hell, he hadn't signed up for this. Not for this.

"We're not here to play games," he mutters, not looking away, holding that gaze. The change is slow and terrifying, the understanding gone, Batman's eyes turning cold and unfeeling, and that's a first. Even in anger and fury, Jim was always sure they could trust each other. Now it's a stranger looking back, not an ally.

"That's right. You never play the games, do you? Not Joker's, not anyone's. How does that work out for you? For Rachel Dawes? For your family?"

Gordon's on his feet before he can think, his fist clenched painfully. Batman smirks, and Jim's first instinct is to wipe it off his face with a blow. It's a good thing there's a table between them, or he just might.

He exhales, calming himself down, forcing himself to relax, even though his fingernails are digging into his palms, leaving angry red marks.

"You want games?" he asks, leaning forward, hands flat on the table, and the other man looks up, an almost imperceptible nod in return, and a much more visible smirk for the benefit of their audience, whoever is watching them on the CCTV. "Some things need to be taken care of, first," he adds, and turns away, switches the camera off. There's an absolute silence for at least a minute, even though it feels like an eternity, but no one comes running.

Really depressing.

"Was that really necessary?" Jim asks, lowering his head, then turning back to face the Bat.

"You can't just let me go," is as much of an answer as he's going to get. And he knew that much, and still resents that. There are ways, he could claim to be overpowered, if Joker could escape, than so can the ever resourceful vigilante. "Jim. You can't."

He knows that.

"What would you have me do, then?" he asks, and the tiredness and the frustration shine through, his voice coming out small and broken. Batman looks at him pointedly, a crooked smile on his lips, sad and resigned, and Jim shakes his head. "No. Hell no."

There's one way that the Bat can get out of here and not straight into one of the holding cells, with a slim or no chance of sorting this out quickly and without any major reveals they both want to avoid.

"Unless you have better ideas, Jim." The mocking tone is back, and right now, Jim really hates him, mostly for being right about the whole thing.

"I can tell them..." he starts and stops, and the Bat moves, shifts his chair away from the table, slumping into it, comfortable, nonchalant, dismissive.

"Tell them what? There's nothing you can do. Feels familiar?"

He knows what this is, of course he knows, but the anger swells in him anyway, his chest constricting painfully. "Don't do that."

"Hard to hear, I suppose. Truth can be that. Face it, Jim, it's becoming a recurring theme here, your inability to do the right thing, to take actions. Harvey thought so, I'm beginning to wonder, was he right?"

One step forward, around the desk. Jim stops himself again, forces himself to pause, to control the blood racing through his veins, screaming at him to show Batman the inability to take actions. "You're a bastard," he mutters, shaking his head, and the Bat smiles coldly.

"Oh, yes. And yet, you work with me and trust me and gladly do whatever I ask. What does that make you?"

Jim realises he moved only when his hand starts to hurt, and the chair's metal legs scratch the floor unpleasantly. Batman's jaw moves as he tastes the blood on his lips, the smile never disappearing.

"That's a start."

"I'm sorry," Jim says automatically. "I shouldn't have..." he starts, and never gets to finish, Batman moving swiftly, rising to his feet and almost knocking Jim off his. Jim's back hits the wall painfully, and the first response is the instinct to fight back, and he gets at least one good punch before Batman has him pinned against the concrete. "What the hell?"

"You really insist on making everything difficult," Batman mutters, his face close enough to Jim's that he can feel the warm breath on his skin. The hands don't hold him so strongly now, the bruising pressure on his arms is gone, but Batman's entire body is pressed tightly against him, keeping him in place. "Fight back, Jim, damnit."

"No. I can't do this," he says, meaning mostly that he won't.

"There's a lot of things you can't do, Jim." The rasp eases out, the voice clearer, almost a whisper but not quite, a mocking, sing-songing quality to it. "Are we getting close to the reason why your wife left you?"

It's harder to stop now, once he lays a punch on the Bat, he moves away only when his fist hits the harder part of the armor; in the fury of the moment he doesn't exactly look where he's punching.

"That's enough," he says, watching the blood trickle down Batman's jaw.

"Not nearly," the man steps closer again, reaching out, hand flat on Jim's chest as he shifts closer and closer, until their faces are almost unbelievably close. Jim's lips are parched to the point of hurting, and his tongue swipes across them unconsciously. Batman's reaction is immediate, he presses hard on Jim's body, his knee spreading Jim's legs forcefully. "Or maybe this is the real reason she left? Come on, James, does this make you hard?"

Jim groans, the back of his head hitting the wall as his body tenses, his fingers tightening on the kevlar, fighting to push the Bat away, but he's unrelenting. "Please," he mutters, closing his eyes, and he can hear the answering smirk, and almost feel it on the skin of his neck.

"Of course it does. I can tell, how much you want this, how much you always wanted this," his hand palms Jim's cock through his pants, and his voice is wet and hot against Jim's neck, words etched on the skin almost painfully, with tongue and grazing teeth. "Is that why you'd do everything for me? Because you're so hungry for my cock?"

"Don't..." Jim says, but an intended warning comes out as a plea, and the finishing word could just as well be 'stop' for all the good it does. It could just as well be 'stop' for all that Jim cares, right now. What Batman is saying, that's a complete bullshit, and they both know it, but it doesn't mean that parts of it aren't true, that a lot of it isn't true.

"Maybe you shouldn't have turned that camera off, maybe the others should see this little show, their commissioner eager to do anything to get a criminal to fuck him," he says, fingers working Jim's cock through the material, rough strokes managing to drive Jim completely insane. "Because you would, wouldn't you? You'd get on your knees for me."

Jim looks up, trying to focus his gaze through the skewed glasses, through the haze of arousal and anger. He doesn't have time or energy for games, he didn't have it to begin with, and he just waits till he has Batman's eyes on his. "Yes," he says, plain and simple, and he doesn't just answer this question, he answers every unspoken one.

"God, Jim," Batman says, his voice startlingly different, normal but hoarse, breaking. He steps back, letting go off Jim, who wants to protest at that, but knows better, after all, that's what he wanted, moments ago.

The silence is both uncomfortable and amazingly familiar, and finally, someone steps forward again, and it's not like any other first kiss Jim has ever experienced, it's rough and dirty and painful, and he tastes copper on his tongue, and it might even be his blood, because his lower lip stings, but it's also soothed by Batman's tongue. His fingers close on the kevlar again, but this time, he's pulling the Bat closer, desperate for more of that taste.

"Listen to me, Jim," Batman says, stepping away, but not so far back as to let go off Jim completely. "I'm not getting out of here any other way, and you know it."

He does. He hates it completely and utterly, but he does, one way the Bat gets out of here is if he has to be moved to the hospital, or the morgue. Everyone upstairs, every single detective busying themselves with work right now know this.

"Please, Jim," he says, serious and quiet, and Jim looks away.

"You really are a bastard," he mutters, fingers running down Batman's jaw, caressing the blooming bruise that's not going to be the only one resulting from this.

"Yes. What does that make you?" Batman says, and this time, it sounds much better.


End file.
